If your organization is expanding its international reach, taking time for doing the due diligence to explore and understand new environments is crucial. First steps to take include clearly articulating with your board and senior leadership why you want …

If your organization is expanding its international reach, taking time for doing the due diligence to explore and understand new environments is crucial. First steps to take include clearly articulating with your board and senior leadership why you want to engage with a particular country or region and what you are trying to accomplish. Once the answer to these questions are clear, developing a criteria for identifying or determining if a particular area of the world is aligned with your goals is an important next step.

There is a range of steps you can take to conduct your due diligence depending on your goals, resources, and other contextual issues. These range from basic research using secondary sources; to using a core group of members or partners you may already have in a country/region who can serve as your guides and champions; to a ‘deeper dive’ if a larger commitment is going to be made. The deeper dive may include allocating a longer period of time and appropriate resources to understanding the cultural and other nuances of your target geographic areas.

There are certain aspects of this process that are applicable to all outreach and some that are specific to programs, vis a vis chapters (or other types of membership structures). Some issues to consider are:

General

Customization: A major challenge is often finding the balance between what needs to be standardized (i.e. done the same everywhere), and what can be customized locally, or in other words, what is core and what can be adapted? The historic approach to scale up focused on trying to transfer most of what worked in one place, somewhere else. We are now seeing that minimizing what needs to be core (or standard) to only those things which keep the integrity of the idea or program, and allowing for maximum local customization will make the reiteration more sustainable.

Quality over quantity – Take a ‘slow and steady’ approach – don’t try to expand too quickly. You may want to start with one or two ‘pilot projects’ that you can learn from before adding more. It is always easier to adjust in the early stages, than have to make major changes or end a local presence later on.

Communication – Make sure you have good communication structures, use them regularly and maintain them. Much can go wrong and misunderstandings arise due to lack of communication. And as above, if you are aware of challenges early on, they are easier to adjust initially than once they continue or grow.

Programs

Context – Instead of starting with the approach that something worked well in one place, label it a ‘best practice’, and look for ways to scale it, start first with an analysis of why it worked well in a particular location/context and try to identify what aspects might be replicable (and what might not).

Partnerships/Collaborations – For something to successfully transfer from one location to another, and be sustainable over time, it needs to work in partnership from the very beginning with those in the area we might hope to transfer it to. History is littered with good ideas and ‘best practices’ that have not been sustained when this step of working closely with partners – in a co-creative, not just token approach – is skipped or minimized.

Chapters

Some of the areas to explore when considering where local chapters will be viable include:

Stable political environment, or awareness of political challenges and willingness to work with these.

Economic environment and financial options for the chapter.

Legal environment vis a vis copyright and other potential issues (having a legal advisor who has international experience as well as knowledge of potential target areas is very helpful).

Local members familiar with the organization who can take the lead locally to help create a chapter.

Other local organizations that can be partners.

Available and interested pool of potential members.

Language and cross-cultural capacities and communication structures to have strong communication with your local leaders.

Experiences in developing a criteria

One membership organization I worked with, the American College of Cardiology, developed a very detailed criteria to decide where to pursue chapters. This criteria included working closely with local members and national societies where they existed and taking a very collaborative approach. Some of the questions they developed in doing their assessment of countries where they were considering new chapters included: 1) Current activities/members in the country? 2) Opportunities for knowledge exchange? 3) Benefits to the organization as a whole and/or members in other parts of the world? 4) Resources needed? 5) Other benefits and challenges? A decade later, they now have a strong international presence and over 35 chapters

The Accountability Lab is an organization with programs currently in six countries which approaches their growth very strategically. Here are the key factors they consider in selecting locations:

Demand: We work where there is explicit demand for the Lab’s work from young people, communities and governments.

Strategy: We work where there are changes happening and we can help to shape evolving accountability dynamics.

Knowledge: We work where we know how decisions get made and we have networks that can help us maximize the impact of everything we do.

Partnerships: We work where we have partners that can provide the support we need to scale-up and sustain our efforts over time.

Cost-effectiveness: We work where we can make the most impact with the least amount of funding.

Sustainability: We work where we know our accountapreneurs can build a community that is likely to endure.

They use a matrix to see if initial target countries appear to have alignment with these factors, and then spend time in the country networking and doing a ‘deep dive’ before making a commitment. They also use this matrix to decide if a country is not the right match for their efforts at the current time.

Hopefully this summary will provide some useful guidance or reminders for you. And remember, strategic growth takes time and due diligence. If you want your efforts to be sustainable, have a strong process and don’t try to rush it!

Going Global Takes Time – that was the theme of an American Society of Association Executives MasterClass on operating globally that I presented at last week. 80% of the group represented organizations operating internationally for more than five years, and …

Going Global Takes Time – that was the theme of an American Society of Association Executives MasterClass on operating globally that I presented at last week. 80% of the group represented organizations operating internationally for more than five years, and 24% for more than 20 years, so there was a lot of experience in the room. The group discussed some of their successes and challenges in increasing their international engagement. The unifying theme was the need to look at long-term horizons and not rush the process. Some of the specific topics discussed included:

Cultural sensitivity – For organizations, there should be an internal focus and an external focus to improving cultural sensitivity. The internal focus may include staff guidelines (what to consider), on-going discussions, or informal lunches with international visitors or to talk about global issues. Cultural sensitivity needs to be an on-going practice so it can be internalized and lead us to appropriate reactions. Some sample questions to think about: Do you know how to spot a cultural difference that you may want to be sensitive to? e.g. When seniority may count more than other factors? That the seasons are the opposite in the northern and southern hemisphere? That just because someone speaks English may not mean that they are as comfortable using it as a native speaker will be? A number of examples were shared of mistakes made. It was agreed that acknowledging that it is okay to make mistakes, share them with others, and learn from them, was important to do throughout the organization. This learning culture should become part of the organization’s DNA.

The external focus includes working with members, partners and others outside of the organization that board and staff come in contact with as representatives of the organization. It is important to question your assumptions and try to go below the surface to understand why someone may be responding in the way that they are. I shared the concept of ‘cultural interpreters’ (equally as important -and sometimes more so – than language interpreters) who know your culture as well as the one you are engaging with, who can help you interpret situations you may not understand.

Due diligence – If your organization is expanding its international reach, using due diligence to explore and understand new environments is crucial. First steps to take include clearly articulating with your board and senior leadership why you want to engage with a particular country or region and what you are trying to accomplish. Once the answer to these questions are clear, developing a criteria for identifying or determining if a particular area of the world is aligned with your goals is an important next step. We also discussed the different types of due diligence you might then do depending on your goals, resources and other contextual issues. These ranged from basic research using secondary sources; to using a core group of members or partners you may already have in a country/region who can serve as your guides and champions; to a ‘deeper dive’ if a larger commitment is going to be made. The deeper dive may include allocating a longer period of time and appropriate resources to understanding the cultural and other nuances of your target geographic areas.

Pricing – Where membership or the selling of products or services is involved, the question of standard or discounted pricing usually comes into play. Some organizations represented use standard prices across the world, others use the World Bank Development Indicators of country classifications, and others use modified versions of this.

One participant described varied pricing as the difference between equality (everyone gets the same thing) vs equity (everyone gets something of equal value to them). This was an example of another unifying theme – that it is okay to modify and customize for the local situation, but that one needs to be transparent as to how those decisions are being made. Especially when it comes to varied pricing, without a strong and well thought out rationale, community members may not feel like they are being treated fairly.

Time and commitment – The experience of the presenters and participants in these areas and others that came up (eg membership benefits, translations, board composition, and different types of local presence) all led to a unifying theme: those who have been most successful with their international engagement understand that it is, and plan for it to be, a long term process.

We’re at an interesting juncture in the history of civil society / social sector organizations. Many innovative organizations that started 20-25 years ago have now reached a certain maturity, with lessons learned to share.

We’re at an interesting juncture in the history of civil society / social sector organizations. Many innovative organizations that started 20-25 years ago have now reached a certain maturity, with lessons learned to share.

This interview with Mari Kuraishi of GlobalGiving and Dennis Whittle of Feedback Labs, the co-founders of GlobalGiving, sharing some of the stories about its founding and their learning in the years since its creation, is one of these interesting reflections. It’s well worth a listen! Some of my take-aways:

The concept of “innovation” in the social sector was new 20 years ago when they were asked to introduce this line of thinking in the World Bank, and it has taken almost two decades for the concept to become more mainstream, with (at least some) resources now available for organizations to try, fail, learn and adapt.

One of the seeds of crowd funding was the desire to also help those who didn’t win contests. I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about the role of contests as the time put into unsuccessful applications can waste scarce resources that might better be used towards improving people’s lives. It’s good to hear that helping some of those who ‘lost’ the contest was one of the motivators for GlobalGiving – helping to diversify resources to a broader range of good efforts.

Dennis also shares that one of his ‘lessons learned’ over the past decades is that in some ways generating new ideas is the easy part, it is the execution of the idea that is the hard part, and that having a good team and committing the time to work through the ideas can help lead to success. It has certainly also been my experience that we often underestimate the time and effort that implementation takes.

Mari shared that her experience in building and nurturing the growth of GlobalGiving has validated the theory that mobilizing people’s potential, with shared core values and minimal rules, can produce effective outcomes.

In many ways these lessons built towards Dennis’ more recent efforts with the broad based coalition that makes up Feedback Labs, and the creation we have seen over the past few years of other broad based alliances. The reflections that CIVICUS, another organization now celebrating its 25th year is sharing, has similar themes. Former Secretary Generals Kumi Naidoo and Ingrid Srinath both underscore

The important role in bringing disparate organizations together “even when organizations [may] prefer to work unilaterally” and the importance of

Last year we wrote about the importance of multi-generational dialogue. We noted a number of considerations to help make these exchanges effective including: two-way dialogue; ensuring that the approach is inclusive and intersectional; strong facilitation; and all participants make a genuine commitment to listen and understand.

Recently we facilitated a workshop for nonprofit leaders to delve further into the practicalities of engaging across generations, and integrating these approaches into organizational practices and cultures.

Some of what we discussed included:

The concept of a ‘generation’ has become fluid and often differences arise from approaches and not age per se. There can also be ‘organizational generations’ depending on how long one has been in an organization and likely to say ‘but we do it this way….’ when new ideas are suggested.

Most of our structures (e.g. educational, workplace and religious) are built around a lecture model – there are leaders/instructors and learner/followers. We thus have to be very intentional about changing the paradigm so that our conversations and organizational cultures can be more inclusive. Otherwise we easily fall into a more hierarchical default pattern.

Like other types of organizational change, multi-generational dialogue requires practice. According to a MRG Foundation toolkit (see below) ‘transforming organizational behavior requires group practice – repeated, systematic exercise designed to develop a new capacity.’

Multi-generational dialogue is most effective within organizations when an intersectional, inclusive framework is applied.

To engage senior leadership, use stories to show the need for and benefits of inclusion.

To help translate these concepts into action, we have found value in the following tips and resources. If your organization has undertaken efforts around multi-generational dialogue, or if you have additional resources to share on this topic, we would love to hear from you.

“Mentor creatively. Trust in younger generations in the way that you were trusted––or wished to have been trusted––by your elders years ago. ”

Alice Buhl, National Center for Family Philanthropy

Recognize that “many of today’s pressing global challenges will have a disproportionate impact on today’s youth. They can bring new energy into decision-making and current solutions. Don’t underestimate them”

Penido Monteiro, Director of the Inspirare Institute, Brazil

For next generations

Respect the work of previous generations. Build on and acknowledge strengths of the past.

The Civil Society and Testing Change project (CS&TC) is an initiative to develop and test new ways for civil society organizations and their partners to operate. The project’s model is for global, multi-stakeholder working groups to focus on …

The Civil Society and Testing Change project (CS&TC) is an initiative to develop and test new ways for civil society organizations and their partners to operate. The project’s model is for global, multi-stakeholder working groups to focus on areas where operational changes may have the most effect on impact, and to have a lead group test these ideas and theories over a multi-year period. An introductory blog post can be found here. Our target group are NGOs and civil society organizations that are 10+ years old, interested in considering operational changes to remain effective and relevant, and with enough leadership commitment and staff capacity to initiate some changes.

To represent the range of issues organizations need to be dealing with we plan to have 4-5 working groups. We currently have two – one on youth engagement (co-led by CIVICUS) and one on impact assessment (co-led by GlobalGiving). The members come from 9 different countries. The youth engagement group has developed and recommended ideas to CIVICUS and one is now being tested. The impact assessment group is in the process of developing ideas. We are working primarily virtually and are using a modified design thinking process.

These are some of our lessons we have learned thus far:

Process lessons

Keeping the focus on paradigm change – We are looking for ideas that will make significant, paradigm change, not just incremental change. Paradigm change needs on-going practice to change our mind-sets and normal behavior patterns. This may call for strong and creative facilitation to encourage people to not fall into accustomed tracks but continually step off of them. We were somewhat surprised at how easily all of us (even those of us who consider ourselves ‘change agents’) fall into these patterns and how important it is to be intentional about changing some of the patterns we have become accustomed to. Venkat Ramakrishnan, Project Leader for Isha Education at GlobalGiving and a member of the impact assessment working group, points out that there are two methods in which the paradigm-shift ideas might be generated – (1) more in depth analysis and converting the outcomes of the analysis into actionable ideas and (2) updating existing programs to create the paradigm-shift in the mind-sets as well as in the organizations’ strategy and processes. He also notes that while ideas that are related to updating existing programs might be easier to identify because of strong expertise on what exists today, delving into theory may allow paradigm-shift ideas to evolve, but it does call for strong moderation to keep the focus on actionable (rather than just theoretical) discussion and outcomes.

Avoiding falling into organizational silos – The project was designed to deal with a wide range of challenges organizations are facing. But as organizational structures (and the broader ecosystem) is still organized into ‘issue areas’ that is also how we have organized our working groups – youth engagement, impact assessment, multi-stakeholder collaboration, etc… Although our goal is to keep the working groups and their experiences integrated at the highest leadership levels of organizations this can be a challenge. We believe that the way most organizations are currently structured can lead to unintentionally siloed learning pattern. Thus we are trying to intentionally work on i) keeping senior staff engaged so the work is fully integrated into the organization’s operations and doesn’t get siloed into the staff working on the ‘issue area’ and ii) linking the work of the different working groups so they (and a broader audience in the social sector) can see the learning and synergy that comes from this linkage. We are using the project’s Steering Group to help do this.

Keeping the focus on what is doable – Some of the subjects we have taken on (such as impact assessment) are quite broad and are being considered by a number of different groups around the world. Notes Alison Carlman, Director of Impact and Communication for GlobaGiving the co-lead on impact assessment: “In a field as broad as monitoring and evaluation (M&E), it is difficult to stay on top of all the research and perspectives. Rather than asking everyone to be responsible for every bit of background, we simply chose to invite well-versed participants and asked everyone to bring his or her own perspective to the table.” Having a working group from different networks and different perspectives allows us to bring in a wide range of background information and issues but it can also pull us in many directions. It is important for us to keep our focus on our target groups and lead testing groups to know where we can realistically make a difference.

Starting a new diverse, working group virtually is hard, but doable – Most of us are accustomed to starting new working groups in-person. That gives us time for ‘orientation’ and some team building. Doing this online can be more challenging. Activities to get to know each other need to be streamlined. And without the benefit of being able to easily read some of the nonverbal communication among group participants, facilitators and attendees need to actively work at surfacing feedback that may happen more naturally in-person. (Fairly reliable videoconference platforms – such as Zoom – are very helpful, but depending on where individual participants are connecting from, bandwith and local reliability can still be a challenge and may result in some switching from video to just audio, or even chat text during the call. We’ve also used WebEx, a google site and google docs). Alison notes: “One-on-one conversations (whether by phone or in person) outside the working group meetings also helped some participants build rapport and understanding that’s hard to do in a one-hour timeslot”.

Using a “modified” design thinking process – A modified design thinking process can work well for prototyping ideas and in a virtual setting. Although design thinking was created to brainstorm among a group working in-person, and to prototype physical products, we have found that brainstorming virtually and ‘prototyping’ ideas by having group members further develop them through text, graphs or storyboarding can work well to generate ideas and then find the ones that they would like to take forward.

Be patient and stay curious – We all are tempted to stop immediately when we arrive at some decisions or conclusions. Magda Mook, CEO of the International Coach Federation and a member of the youth engagement group notes that “Instead, it worked well for our group to stay in the question, to inquire about all different aspects of the proposed decisions and to push back a little in order to examine all the facets of the issue at hand. That resulted in a better end product and a solid recommendation. “

Content/Issue Lessons

In addition to our process learning, each of the working groups are also beginning to learn about how the broad issue areas they are looking at can be filtered to be especially useful to organizations. Although we are just in the early stages of each group’s work, these are some initial learnings.

Youth

Based on initial discussions, the CIVICUS staff has made an effort to include more youth organizations as partners.

One partnership with a youth organization in Brazil resulted in over 2,000 people attending 10 events. The organizers believe that many of those who attended were ‘young people who wouldn’t normally engage in social action’.

An institutional protocol or guideline might help to reduce the gap in the efforts to consciously include youth perspectives in each programmatic level.

Impact Assessment

Evaluation can focus on accountability and/or learning. We are often moved in the direction of accountability by our donors and other stakeholders, but we can choose how to balance our focus.

We may be able to use concepts like ‘learning orientation’ as proxies for organizational effectiveness where it may be hard to evaluate the exact cause and effect of change.

Impact assessment should go beyond evaluating an organization’s outputs and outcomes and should also account for unintended outcomes from interventions. It’s important that organizations consider the ‘first, do no harm’ principle.

It takes more time, but moving towards qualitative approaches such as individual interviews and focus groups can help to see who may have changed some behavior based on engagement with the organization and its programs.

Pablo Rodriguez-Bilella, professor at the Universidad Nacional de San Juan in Argentina, and a member of the impact assessment group notes “The stress and emphasis of this project in paradigm change and learning around impact assessment matches some of the most vital and present concerns of the evaluation community.”

Finally, Elisa Novoa, youth engagement officer of CIVICUS and the co-lead for the youth engagement group, notes: “So far, the project has contributed to strengthen partnerships and communication among a great diversity of civil society practitioners and thinkers across the globe in a pace adapted for each of the participants to reflect, learn and test.”

I recently facilitated a session for social sector practitioners on global trends for organizations engaging internationally, and some ideas for how they could incorporate them into their operations or programs in creative ways. Here is some of what we discussed:…

I recently facilitated a session for social sector practitioners on global trends for organizations engaging internationally, and some ideas for how they could incorporate them into their operations or programs in creative ways. Here is some of what we discussed:

Tying to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – organizations can use the SDGs as a gateway to encourage their members to think and act more globally

* The International Federation of Library Associations has a publication to help local libraries make connections to the SDGs and Action 2030 Agenda.

Incorporating millennials and multi-generational dialogues – The millennial generation is now making their impact known not only in numbers but with the creation of many new organizations founded and/or run by youth. Forward-looking organizations and initiatives are increasingly recognizing that effective multi-generational dialogues can have many benefits.

Example:

*The American Association of University Women has a Younger Women’s Task Force that bridges from university chapters to traditional chapters.

On-line communities – Many organizations are experimenting with online communities. A few considerations were shared: use of platform that your target audience is on and is comfortable with; have a core active group and a number of moderators (including from different parts of the world) who will help to ‘seed’ the conversation and keep the group active; and be aware that the community may have cycles of activity and less activity.

A couple of years ago Bonnie wrote a series of posts on how our concept of networking has changed in a more globally connected world. We are continuing to see an increase in global networking and in the creation and expansion of new networks. Two new efforts provide interesting examples of how some of these new networks are being created and some of what is being learned.

The Civil Society and Testing Change project is a collaborative effort among a network of organizations and individuals interested in testing some operational changes to keep civil society/nonprofits organizations effective. It strives to bring in people from different perspectives, sectors and networks who have a common goal of exploring and testing some new ideas. It was started virtually and thus far the people involved in the project’s steering group and working groups have not yet met each other in-person.

Here is some of the initial learning about creating and nurturing a new global network:

Bonding a new group virtually and online facilitation skills are different than our in-person knowledge and practices. The kind of bonding that takes place in-person can be a challenge to create virtually. New group ‘bonding activities’ (such as sharing personal information or icebreakers for the group to get to know each other) need to be streamlined. And without the benefit of being able to read some of the nonverbal communication among group participants, facilitators and attendees need to actively work at surfacing feedback that may happen more naturally in-person. Having some people who already know each other (or ‘of each other’) and some who are good at facilitating new relationships (in addition to the person who has a more formal role of facilitator) can be very helpful.

Cross-generational dialogue (actually listening and adopting some of the ideas from a different perspective) is increasingly important especially with a creative and activist younger generation. When it comes to significant organizational and societal change, blending the lessons of ‘veterans’ with the enthusiasm and perspectives of younger generations can be a potent combination.

Our networks are smaller than we would like to think. We need to be intentional about reaching beyond our usual groups and bridge-building. There are often many others working on common issues (who we may not be initially aware of) that we can learn from and collaborate with.

The importance of building communication into the process. Communication is always important to change processes, but especially when working with a wide-ranging group of stakeholders it is important to ensure that you build good communication systems into the process. Keeping busy people regularly up to date, and flagging when you need them to take action can help them to engage more effectively with the project.

A group interested in putting more focus on women’s role as leaders in global health began in 2015, reaching out to like-minded individuals through a series of informal and formal sessions held in conjunction with global health conferences they were attending in different parts of the world. In the last two years through a volunteer structure they organized 25 dialogues around the world engaging approximately 1500 people. In only two years, those who associate with this new network now number close to 8,000 people in over 60 countries.

Here is some of the learning thus far about creating and nurturing a new global network:

Shifting the focus of advocacy from theory and processes to evidence based, goal oriented action results in greater impact and attracts more people. We use existing resources and focus our efforts in engagement, implementation, and follow-up. Most of our activities have an action component for individuals or their organizations. (i.e. Tools we use are not innovative in content, but in application they are targeted to the most influential actors in global health, i.e. gender equality checklist targeted toward event and conference organizers)

Invest in the team and community. We spent the first few months of our organization identifying, articulating and hardwiring our shared team values. Through emphasizing co-creation as an approach to our work, our team values go beyond being aspirational and are lived experiences. We nurture such a culture through team-building and as a result of this approach as our scope of work grows, so does our team with shared values. One of our shared values is community and we try to provide a space for women to talk about issues and find solutions. We are continually redefining the idea of community and how we interact with people.

Communication. We try to focus on using different platforms for different goals and tasks and be willing to adapt (e.g. if a project management platform is not being used by team members, there is no reason to force its use). Using virtual platforms, especially Whatsapp groups, Twitter and Facebook allows us to stay connected, build interpersonal relationships and have our communication be engaging, creative and a shared experience. For example, a photo of an infamous #allmale World Bank and WHO roundtable meeting on global health inspired active dialogue internally through 100+ Whatsapp exchanges, but also a Twitter campaign to spread the word. Twitter has allowed people to engage as they are able and interested. Often new members of the community will say that they ‘followed [our] work for some time on Twitter’ before approaching us, and they then feel like they have some ownership and a stake in the work. Whatsapp has been great for social connections, quick feedback and accessibility (as it requires minimal connectivity). We try to complement in-person working group meetings with meaningful virtual dialogue.

Valuing all actors as potential contributors and partners. Partnerships are crucial to breaking down silos, increasing reach in an efficient and effective manner and amplifying efforts. Our steep growth and engagement has been a result of tapping into existing infrastructures, networks and communities. We deliberately engage with diverse groups, young people, leaders at all levels; and use a multi-stakeholder approach –with specific outreach to policy makers, academia and the private sector. (i.e. Our top accomplishments are a direct result of partners from all these areas).

There are unavoidable pitfalls in partnerships often rooted in existing power dynamics and privilege structures. The existing influence of patriarchal norms can challenge collaboration. Some of the challenges we have faced are brand visibility; credit for our work; patronizing engagement; putting forward visible leaders in lieu of diverse voices based on perceived undervaluing of lesser known names; and being unpaid and unrecognized for our work. Using strategies to address these challenges requires foresight, good communication and partnership alignment.

Partnerships require a commitment from all involved. Successful partnership building is based on a shared vision, alignment in values, and common goals. At Women in Global Health, we invest in getting to know our partners, this especially includes the people we work with by cultivating relationships, building trust and pooling resources—it makes working together much easier.

Roopa Dhatt – is a co-founder and Executive Director of Women in Global Health. She is a physician by training and a patient advocate by principle, striving for greater health and well-being for all people through working in global health. Her global experience includes serving as the President of the largest student organization in the world, with over 120+ country members and representing one million medical student members, the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations.

Bonnie Koenig – is the Principal of Going International with over 30 years working with civil society organizations on developing their international engagement and strengthening their organizational operations. This work has spanned over 40 countries. She is the Civil Society & Testing Change project founder and coordinator.

Kelly Thompson – is the Programming and Gender Director of Women in Global Health. She is also a physician by training who believes that development can only be achieved through gender equality and access to health, particularly for women, young girls and key populations.She has worked as a collaborator and/or consultant with UNAIDS, ILO, WHO, and PMNCH on adolescent health, HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), youth engagement and youth-led accountability.

In case you may have missed them, here are my most popular posts from 2017:

Five ways to engage internationally in 2017 (January) – just as the title reads, this post encouraged organizations to broaden their horizons by starting the year with some simple ways to engage internationally. There may be some useful reminders here to jumpstart your 2018 as well!

Global Health Trends (April) – a periodic update of a scan of the global health arena I started to do for clients in 2011.

Multi-generational Dialogue – (July) – an often overlooked aspect of inclusive discussions, facilitation and training. My co-author Alyssa Smaldino and I plan to do more with this in 2018 so stay tuned!

Test It! – The project continues (August) – – an update on how the Civil Society and Testing Change project I founded and direct is progressing . Also more to come on this in 2018!

Happy holidays! May we all come back rejuvenated and ready for the work ahead.

Earlier this year I wrote about the state of impact assessment. Under the auspices of the Civil Society and Testing Change project, I recently helped convene and facilitate a discussion to further exchange learning on this topic, and brainstorm how we can make our ideas more actionable. Some of the ideas shared at this roundtable are below.

Some key variables to consider:

It is important to stipulate how you are defining impact, and whether your purpose is to validate your impact and/or to improve it. Find ways to keep your focus on impact, however a group defines it.

Building community and trust is an important aspect of being truly inclusive. It was noted that cultural interpreters can help to involve a greater diversity of people/stakeholders. The Global Fund for Community Foundations is beginning to look at social capital indicators – who comes to meetings? who contributes? what local assets are being mobilized? as ways to demonstrate engagement that will lead to impact.

Although there is a lot of focus on collecting data, it is critical to know what you plan to do with the data you are collecting. Especially vis a vis using technology to gather data, it is important to not lose the focus on people and relationships.

Since impact can be hard to assess, can we use proxies such as trust and learning to try and get at impact?

A discussion ensued about the importance of recognizing that many of the systems we are working within are broken or poorly aligned with goals of inclusiveness and that we need to work hard at creating opportunities for true engagement and power sharing. Some important questions to ask include: Who is part of the community? How do we equalize roles? What conversations should we be having? Why does [x] matter to us? When we take the time to build trust and co-create we get insights into how and why contributions are made for the good of the community, assets are mobilized, and what can be effective and sustainable pathways.

It was also noted that data can be used to keep the status quo or upend it – we should keep our focus on changing paradigms where we can and not just making small changes to ineffective systems.

Challenges

Some challenges that were raised:

Our language and processes can put up barriers to engagement.

It can be easy to get overwhelmed by large amounts of data; we need to better learn how to analyze it and use it towards meaningful action.

Different donors often request organizations to look at different indicators – how does an organization align potential indicators in the most effective way to assess its own impact?

Who does impact assessment have to come from to be credible?

The next step for the Civil Society and Testing Change project is to have a global working group on impact assessment develop some ideas for GlobalGiving to test. Stay tuned!

The Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) program, launched as a global collaboration in 2010 had as its first partners the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Laerdal Medical Company of Norway, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Newborn and Maternal Health program, Save the Children, and the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD). It now encompasses numerous additional partners, working in over 80 countries.

Recently I visited three centers in Uganda (in the Kampala area) with staff from Save the Children –Uganda. All three of these facilities are also testing the Augmented Infant Resuscitator (AIR) which is being tested in the US (Boston) and Uganda (Kampala). The AIR came from the goal of using basic technology to make learning HBB techniques even easier. The AIR addition was co-created by Dr. Data Santorino of Uganda, an HBB master trainer. In Uganda, Dr. Santorino coordinates closely with Save the Children on this study.

All three centers we visited had practice equipment and corners for the resident midwives to practice HBB techniques. In one center it was a ‘mobile corner’ that was set up as the two midwives felt they had time to practice. Time to practice was an issue in all three centers, although the ones that had the smallest staff felt they were so stretched in working with the women who come to them, it was extremely hard to prioritize practice time.

Midwives are given opportunities to come to HBB trainings conducted by Save the Children and Ministry of Health staff. Those midwives who aren’t able to come (especially from small or under-staffed clinics) are then trained within the clinic by those that did receive the more formal training. The practice corners, and continued outreach and visits by Save the Children staff, are designed to support this practice. For the AIR test, the midwives are encouraged to keep a book tracking their practice time and this is checked by connecting their AIR device to a computer when a staff member visits.

Teaching the original HBB techniques for helping to prevent birth asphyxiation in the first moments of a baby’s life has evolved in different ways in different places, often based on how it has integrated into the local of Ministry of Health’s programs. In Uganda they are working on integrating HBB plus (HBB and essential neonatal care – ENC) into the Ministry of Health’s Basic Emergency Obstetric Care (BEOC) program.

The midwives we visited were all very pleased with how being trained in HBB techniques has helped them. Their comments included:

· Builds confidence in my skills.

· Mothers also have more confidence in us.

· Have a better idea of when to take quick action and how much ventilation to use.

· Birth deaths have gone down.

Specifically about using the AIR addition they noted:

· I don’t have to keep bagging [providing ventilation] so intensely when I receive the AIR feedback.

· It gives you a good sense of how you are doing.

· It can help you to self-learn, practice without a teacher, and still get feedback.

· The feedback provides an incentive to practice more.

Having been involved in the original design of the HBB program, these visits were a good reminder of how important it is to see how the programs we design are being implemented locally, and incorporate feedback into design revisions. It also underscored the importance of continuing efforts at communication among practitioners involved in similar efforts, in order to share lessons learned.